Photoshop

As many of you know I am a BIG fan of Photoshop, some days spending 8 – 12 hours using it. But at the same time I am not a fan in any way of Photoshop CC – the version that you rent for X dollars every month. That being said I need to clear up some misconceptions of Photoshop CC as there is a lot of misinformation kicking around about it.

1) Photoshop CC does stand for cloud, creative cloud to be exact but it does not mean that your images are stored on the cloud. You can if you like purchase space for storage from Adobe, or anyone else for that matter, but you can also save your images to any place that you like. So if you have CC you can still save your images to your hard drive, USB stick or whatever medium you like.

2) CC still gets installed on your computer, just like previous versions of Photoshop. The difference with using CC is that you are only renting the program and if you stop paying for it then you loose the ability to use it. Because of this “rental” your computer needs to sign in to the Internet, and Adobe’s site, regularly so it will continue to work. How often? I have been told by people daily, weekly and monthly but the correct answer is from Adobe “An Internet connection is required the first time you install and license your apps, but you can use the apps in offline mode with a valid software license. The desktop apps will attempt to validate your software licenses every 30 days. Annual members can use the apps for up to 99 days in offline mode. Month-to-month members can use the software for up to 30 days in offline mode.”

3) Adobe owns the rights to any images created or manipulated with CC. WRONG, all rights still stay with the artist.

4) THE BIG ONE I hear about. Once you start using Adobe CC for working on your images once you stop your subscription, stop paying for the use of the program, then all the images that you have created are gone or not usable. This is both yes and no. Once you stop using Adobe CC then if you try and open an image created with CC in an older version of Photoshop, or another program, then some features may not work any longer. So if you use a layer to do some editing and that layer feature is only in CC then if you try and open the image in say Photoshop 5 then that layer will be discarded when opening the file. The file is still suppose to open you will just loose some of the editing that you did. This could be a BIG pain for many photographers but there are work arounds for this.

When you are saving your images do not just save a PSD with the layers but also save a TIFF or a JPEG with all the layers flattened. Yes this is not ideal in a number of ways but will get you around the problem, just make sure that you also save a PSD with all the layers in case you want to continue editing or make changes.

Second I use a program that will view all Photoshop images and then convert them to a different file type and this way you do not loose the effects that you did in Photoshop. A NOTE HERE: Adobe may stop allowing programs to do this so I really suggest using the suggestion above instead of this one.

Photoshop is still the best program in my opinion for Editing but if you do not need all the features of CC I really recommend Elements. You can buy the program once and you own it.